Assessing healthful school environments in Hyderabad’s primary education system

Education and health form a virtuous circle. Healthy, attentive and secure children can fully participate in classroom activities to achieve their full potential. And better education leads to improved health (WHO 2004). Children who are ill, hungry, weakened by parasitic disease, malnourished, scared, or tired are not capable of learning well. Meagre attention to the health needs of children diminishes efforts to achieve education for all in the short term and minimises the benefit of education in the long term. Beautiful schools, efficient teachers and high quality learning resources are of no use for children who are not in school. But bringing them to the school is not enough either. The best teachers in the world won’t be able to eliminate the attention and learning deficits of children who are starved, ill or intellectually challenged. Health, nutrition and hygiene are key determinants which make education wholesome (WHO, 1996).

Global scenario- The international school health outlook offers scope for cautious optimism. For a variety of reasons, including population growth, reduced infant and child mortality and the success of efforts to improve access to schooling, more children than ever before are now enrolled in basic education programs. This is a situation of great potential for governments endeavouring to enhance the productive capacity of their citizenry through efforts to provide Education for All (EFA). But when health and nutrition problems among school age children prevent them from attending school regularly, impair their ability to learn or cause them to leave school early, this potential is threatened. School attendance drops when children or their family members are ill, when the school is not clean or not equipped with sanitary facilities, when parents cannot afford to send children to school, when children have to work, or when students fear violence or abuse on the way to, from or in school. Many children suffer from preventable diseases like malaria, hepatitis, worm infestations. Poor health and malnutrition are important underlying factors for low school enrolment, absenteeism; poor classroom performance and early school drop out as reflected in World Declaration on Education for all. The poor health status of school children are attributed to nutritional deficiencies (as 1/3 of them live in abject poverty and neglect), unhygienic conditions, lack of water and sanitation facilities and improper health and hygiene education/behaviour.